266 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[APRIL 2S, 1891, 



BEIIINISCENCES OF THE LATE GEN. STRONG, ] 



TN the death of Brevet Brig.-Gen. William E. Sti-oug, of Chi- 

 cago, as annoTinced. last week, the sportsmen of the cotmfcry, 

 and more particularly of the West, which was his home, sustain 

 a lamentable loss. 



His services in the war were briefly referred to last week, but 

 to what was said then may be added the statement that he was 

 with Gen. MoPherson from the organization of the Seventeenth 

 Army Corps until Gen. McPherson took command of the Army 

 of the Tennessee and was killed before Atlanta. When that ill- 

 fated officer fell before the fire of the twelve ambushed rifle- 

 men upon whom he had bliiudered while mal<ing a reconnois- 

 sance, he was accompanied by tien. Strong, who had at the 

 moment started off in obedience to an order. It was Gen. Strong' 

 who caught McPherson's wonuded horse, which later died, and it 

 was he also who recovered and brought in tlie dead body of his 

 commander. Throughoxit the war he showed nimself the noble 

 man and soldier. 



It was in January, 1867, that Gon. Strong came to Chicago. He 

 did not resume his law practice, but became connected with the 

 Peshtigo Lumber Co., a large concern operating in the pine for- 

 ests of Wisconsin. He leave.'? a widow and three cliildren. He 

 died possessed of considerable property, though he was not so 

 wealthy a man as was generally supposed. 



It is in his capacity as a sportsman, hovfever, that lie attracts 

 most interest for these oolunms, and in nothing was he more con- 

 spicaous than in his ardent love of field .siiortK and for his pro^ 

 flciency in them. Any weapon fitted his Iiand. He was a skilled 

 angler, and as a combination rifle and wing shot he had no supe- 

 rior among the amateurs of the West. He pui'sued birds or big 

 game with almost equal eagerness, and spent a great deal of time 

 in long hunting trips. His outfits for his different lines of sport 

 were very elaborate and well chosen. He was a. rover years ago 

 of the mountains and plains of iha West and has killed many 

 sorts of big game, chiefly buffalo and elk. He was an old com- 

 panion of Gen. Phil Sheridan in the West after the war, and the 

 two spent many a w^eek in camp together in successful chase. 

 Gen. Crook was another hunting comrade of his, aiid when the 

 latter died the loss cut Gen, vStrong deeply. Mr. Wirt Dexter, one 

 of the wealthiest and most prominent shooters of Chicago, who 

 died within the year, was yet another shooting friend of General 

 Strong. It is now only about a year ago that Gen. Crools, Gen. 

 Strong and Wirt Uexter made a big hunting trip together to the 

 Indian Territory. To-day not one of .these men is alive. 



If, however, we 'svish to find the dearest friend, the esteemed 

 companion and the most frequent comrade on the hunt that Gen. 

 Strong ever had, we shall find him alive to-day, in Chicagb, him- 

 self gray but still vigorous, and even to-day hardly able to talk of 

 Gen. Strong's death. This is Mr. Alex. Semple, one of the oldest 

 shooters of this city. He was fairly a bj other to Gen. Strong, and 

 these have hunted together almost excltisively. On receipt of the 

 news of the General's death a Fokest and Stk^)AM representative 

 called on Mr. Semple. The latter spoke most feelingly. 



"I hunted with Gen. Strong for over 2li years,"' said he, "and he 

 was the perfect sportsman in every day of aU those years. He 

 was a tall, well-made man, strong and vigoroxis. He was the best 

 all-round shot I ever saw. I don't think his e^ual existed. He 

 had hunted all over the country. We used to get most of our 

 deer up in Wisconsin, but he had shot all over the Rockies, and 

 killed elk, buffalo, antelope and deer, all through that country. 

 He was as pretty a held shot as ever you saw, and a great duck 

 hunter. He was a member of ToUeston Duck Club, and one of 

 the best of tbem. He shot all the game birds well, and used to 

 Ush a great deal also. He seemed to ,iust naturally love the woods 

 and fields, and he took naturally to aU such sports. Many and 

 many is the happy day we spent together. I never knew a friend 

 like him. 



"The last hunt we had together," said Mr. Semple, "was in 

 Kansas, the 20th of last November. We went out to Alm.^, Kansas, 

 and were with Mr. Gleaaon, who t ook out some of his dogs for usv 

 We got a good many birdt, but the General was not shooting well. 

 I never saw him do so poorly. He wa.s not himself at all. Ho 

 never expected to get well, and we both knew it, though he did 

 not talk much of it, on my account. 1 knew \^ hat was his trouble. 

 I knew all his family matters. There is no use saying anything 

 except that a good man has left the ranks of sportsmen. 



"When the General felt his health failing rapidly, he wanted to 

 go to Florida. His doctor thought he would better go to southern 

 Europe, and I advised him to do this, and got him to take liis 

 nephew along. The General's wife and two daughters had been 

 in Europe for some time, and he was to join them and keep to the 

 warmer climates. It broke ray heart to see him start, for we both 

 knew he would never come back. When I saw htm get on tlie 

 train, I said, 'That's the last. I will not see him again.' 1 have 

 the last letter General Strong ever wrote to anybody, and the last 

 telegram he ever sent. He sent them to mo from New York before 

 he started across the ocean. I carry them in my pocket. You 

 won't find a kinder letter anywhere than this one he sent me. 

 when he knew it was all up." 



By courtesy of Mr. Semple Fokest ANt) Stream gives this 

 letter. The sportsman spirit shows through it, even to the last. 

 It reads precisely as follows: 



"MuBRAY Hii/i. HogDlsii, 3Sfew JToi'tk, JVIarph 13, 1891. 

 Jfy Dea/r Mr. Semple: 



"We arrived safely at 7:30 o'clock yesterday afternoon. The trip 

 was rather tiresome, but I stood it fairly well. I think 1 notice 

 some improvement in my condition. I am a trifle stronger than 

 when I left Chicago, and my appetite is a little better. I hope 

 when I get on the ocean I will notice still further improvement. 

 I believe I shall. 



"We go down to the ship (La Gascogne) in the early morning to- 

 morrow, and sail at 8 o'clock. I will write to you from Italy, or 

 wherever I may be, and keep you advised of my condition. I 

 think I am going to get weU and strong again, and expect to be 

 back in Chicago on or before June 1, fully restored to health, I 

 want to have another shoot with you, anyway, perhaps several. 



"I want to thank you for all your kindness, thouahtfulness and 

 consideration 6,UiHng all time year>- that it nas been my pleasure to 

 know you. We have had some glorious times together which I 

 shall never forget. You have done very much to cheer me up and 

 make my life happy. I remember it all with pi-ide and pleasure. 

 Yottr warm friendship and close companionship are treasured in 

 my memory. I send you my heartiest best greeting and my 

 wishes for your health, happiness and prosperity. 



"Remember me kindly to Mrs. Semple. 



"Youre ever sincerely, W. E. S." 



On the nest morning Gen. Strong sent the following telegram 

 to Mr. Semple: "8:09 A. M.— We are about to sail. Feeling better. 

 Good-bye.— W. E. Stroitg." 



Unquestionably he wrote thus cheerfully to cheer up his old 

 friend. A few days of travel, a few days with his family, happy 

 ones, we hope, and his life \vas over. ca,blegran^ announped th^ 



fact to the papers in this country. His remains will probably be 

 brought to Chicago, where he has a son living. He died at the 

 age of 51 years. 



D. W. GROSS. 



VTERY many of our readei-s will learn with keen l egret of the 

 ~ death of IVIr. D. W. Cross, a veteran sportsman, whose genial, 

 kindly nature and deep interest in aU that pertained to his 

 favorite pursuit had endeared him to tht wide circle of friends 

 tliat he had made during a long and honored life. 



Ml'. Cross died in Cleveland, Ohio, April 9, at the age of 77. He 

 was born in Pulaski, Oswego county, N. Y., Nov. 17, 1814, was 

 educated at Ha,niilton Academy, Where he was prepared for col- 

 lege, and In 1&16 went to Cleveland, where he entered the law 

 office of Payne & Willsou, the senior member of the firm being 

 the Hon. H. B. Payne,, of Ohio. In the year 1837 he was appointed 

 deputy collector of the port of Cleveland, which position he held 

 for eighteen years. Soon after this he was admitted to the bar 

 and practiced successfully up to the year 1860. In 1855 he began 

 to take an interest in commercial pursuits and gradually devoted 

 less attention to the law and more to business, and as the years 

 went on was prominent in various industrial enterprises in and 

 near Cleveland. A few years ago Mr. Cross suffered from a 

 stroke of paralysis which has confined him to the house ever 

 since. Our last shooting with him was done in the winter of 1884 

 and '85. 



Mr. Cross was a ihost ehtiiusiastic sportsman, and it would be 

 difficult to mention any man In this country who has done more 

 to raise the tone of sportstiianshlp. In the old days he was a great 

 deer hunter, and for thirteen successive seasons from 1838 he de- 

 voted his vacations and what time he could spare to this f aacinat- 

 ing pursuit, in which Oliver H. Perry was his favorite companion. 

 He was one of the founders of the Winous Point Club, and to his 

 wise counsels the club ow6d much pif the good shooting which its 

 members enjoyed for so many years. He founded and was 

 president of the Oneida Club of New York, and was a member of 

 the Castalia Club of Ohio, the Narrows Island Club of North 

 Carolina, and of many other similar associations. He did much 



nails, to be worn on rubber boots in fishing on rapid and stony 

 trout streams* as a protection against slipping and to preserve 

 the boots. He also devised a mode of safely carrying an extra tip 

 in a water-tight copper tube, inserted in the hollow staff of his 

 landing net, which has been quite extensively used by anglers. 



Mr. Cross was a versatile writer, mostly in the interests of 

 sportsmen; but among his most noteworthy productions was his 

 personal reminiscences of the Canadian rebellion, during the ad- 

 ministration of Sir Francis Bond Head, while Governor of the 

 provinces of Upper Canada, which was ptxblished in the Magazine 

 of Western History. 



Personally Mr. Cross was a most charming man. He took the 

 readiest interest in all matters pertaining to sport, and was 

 always glad to assist others with his great stores of information. 

 His death leaves a vacancy that it will be hard to fill. 



IN MY BOAT HOUSE. 



Staunch old canoe. 

 We've had some pleasant times, we two, 

 In autumn days when Nature's book 



Was bound in gold and blue. 

 What rdoky cove or rushy bay 

 But saw our lazy shadow stray 



Over tlie languid grass. 

 Or flashing of our silver hook 

 And now and then a sullen bass 



Come, fighting all the way. 

 Ah, me! old boat, how swiftly speed 

 Oar yellow Indian summer days. 

 How soon the tawny gold and red 

 That made the maples all ablaze, 

 In rain of withered leaves was shed; 



And autumn time was dead. 

 Would that to-day as swiftly flew 

 These laggard hours so long and slow; 

 For many a mouth must come and go 

 Ere I set sail again with you. 



Stout old canoe. 



D. W. CROSS, 



for flshculttire, and was one bt the first to plant the California 

 trout in Ohio waters. In ISSI he purchased three hundred acres 

 of land In Oswego coimty, N. Y., in the waters of which he planted 

 several hlmdred thousand California trout. 



l\lr. Cross studied carefully the food of wildfowl, and did much 

 to introduce the wild rice and the wild celery in regions whpre 

 they had hitherto been unknown. 



The preserves of the Winous Point Club are at the head of 

 Sandusky Bay, and at the mouth of the Sandusky River, and 

 comprise several thousand acres of marsh and feeding grotmds 

 adapted to every variety of wildfowl, especially of canvasback 

 and redhead ducks. 



Soon after the establishment of this club, Mr. Cross began the 

 careful sttidy of the habits of the difl'ereut species of water fowl 

 that resorted to these exteusive marshes. He soon discovered 

 that the food that attracted them here and that made It a resort 

 of such vast numbers of game'birds, both in spring and fall, was 

 the bulb and tender leaves of the wild celery. He learned, too, 

 that the seed of the wild celery could be gathered in October, and 

 when planted In suitable water with mud bottom would gi'ow 

 well and attract the ducks in their annual passage to and from 

 the breeding grounds. This food is found in many places in this 

 country, especially in the Chesapeake Bay and in Currituck Sound 

 in North Carolina, on the extensive preserves of the Narrows 

 Island Club, where the canvasback, redhead, widgeon, wild goose, 

 brant and swan resort to feed and fatten on the succulent bulb. 

 Of this latter club Mr. Cross was long a member, and there at the 

 age of seventy years he brought down a wild swan. 



Among the attractive food for the geese, swan, canvasback, 

 widgeon, pintail, teal and mallard, aside from the wild celery, Mr. 

 Cross noted in the water of Sandusky Bay the marsh potato or 

 the bulb of the arrow head, and the tender water plant known as 

 the anacharsi-s, fotmd also in abundance in the preserve of the 

 Narrows Island Club. 



Having made the food and habits of water fowl a successful 

 study, he utilized it in his pursuit of game, and at the request of 

 his sportsmen associates he was induced to compile his knowledge 

 in his book, "Fifty Years With Rod and Gun," published in Cleve- 

 land. In this book he approximated the flight of birds per second, 

 and the projection of different sizes of shot s\,t various initial 

 velocities, wliich in the tables prepared would show very nearly 

 where and how to hold to enable the hunter to kill his game. 



He devoted much time toward perfediug the game and Hsh 

 laws of Ohio, and was always an uncomproniising advocate 

 of fish and game protection, believing that the sportsman of 

 the era of abundance should yield something tmselfishly to the 

 sportsman of the future. He believed fully in artificial culture 

 of food fish, and Avas in favor of stringent laws for its advance- 

 jnent and protection. He invented sandals studded witfl hob 



Brave old canoe, 



1 gfiall not soon forget, nor you. 



That day of all our autumn da,\ 



When she was with us to i. 



Ahl still I see her sittin? there, 



The yellow sunlight in her baiVi 



As in and out the dimpled bay.-^ • 

 We drifted, careless where. 



Our lines were never even wet- 

 Yon thought it quite absurd, I knew; 



Maytiap it was; and yet— and vet 



Though she forgot and went her waj'. 



The queer thing is I can't forget. 

 Ah! well-a-day! 



Hereafter we will go— we two- 

 Dear old canoe. M. M. t.i.Ass. Jr. 



BETWEEN TWO RIVERS. 



1'^HERE is a vast deal of wilderness in Sullivan county. 

 N. Y., and will be when the people of these 

 United States outnumber the population of China. The 

 surface conformation affords great var'ety, with hill and 

 rock for the predominating features. To one whose 

 acquaintance with the region is limited to the vicinage of 

 Monlicello and the lake.s this may seem like libel, but 

 the upper crust of the town of Thompson is not the whole 

 of Sullivan county, and even here the stubborn soil de- 

 mands of the farmer something more energetic than ioi- 

 plied in the pht-ase, "tickling with a hoe." Pixcepting 

 more or less "soft spots here and there, sister townships 

 present a face of adamant to the agriculturist. Great 

 boulder-strewn barrens, thousands of acres, are sacred 

 to scrub oak, sweet fern and huckleberry bushes, sentin- 

 elled with rock pines, jagged, starved looking and con- 

 sumptive. 



These dismal barrens terruinate when a more ambitious 

 growth r-ises, generally in a straggling manner, to forest 

 height and girth. Woods extend over hill and dale for 

 miles, little of which is now forest primeval. The in- 

 creasing demand for sleepers, ties and telegraph poles, 

 promotes close inspection of the hard wood growth, oak 

 and chestnut especially, and often when the game seeker 

 is indulging himself with the fancy that he is an explorer 

 he meets with a stump on which the axe has left its des- 

 tructive seal. 



Occasionally one meets with natural groves of rock 

 maple, lifting aloft their foliage crowns until they seem 

 strangely small for the nolirishmeht of such mighty boles. 

 Wide areas are studded with giant eyergteens, a few pines, 

 but mostly plebian hemlocks. In many of the hollowe 

 lie extensive laurel swamps, swales and bogs, siirroilnded 

 by wilderness so utter that the bellow of a moose,- or the 

 sight of one digging for pond lily roots on the margin of 

 a peaty pool, would seem in keeping with the rest* 



A few stout hearted sons of toil have their clearings 

 here and there, and wage endless battle to keep wild 

 nature sufficiently subdued to grow at least a portion of 

 their sustenance, usually gleaned amid a stout annual 

 growth of oak and hickory shoots. 



During the early decades of the century when as a boy 

 the poet Saxe was helping to extend his father's clearing 

 near- Monticello, the population of the county increased 

 rapidly. Almost every man was a woodman and hunter, 

 and the woodland life shrank before them, some species 

 quite disappearing. When our people learned of the 

 great wealth that lay in the fertile bosom of the West, a 

 reaction came. The young men of the hilly East relin- 

 quished their assaults on the forests, tired of struggling 

 with stumps and stones, they began an exodus to the al- 

 luyial timber bottoms of Ohio and Indiana, and to the in- 

 viting sward of the prairie. 



At the same time, the diversifying and rapidly growing' 

 volume of national industry attracted the braiaand bravvn 

 of old Sullivan to more profitable employment than the 

 tillage of their native fields. 



As might be expected, this reaction had a marked effect 

 on the native fauna. By confining themselves to the 

 forest they enjoyed comparative immunity from pursuit 

 by human foes. Adaptation to change in environment 

 due to the presence of civilized man took place. Many 

 localities in the Eastern and Middle States now swam^ 



